The September 1926 issue of Weird Tales had a true gem of terror hidden among its pretty impressive contents: “Across Space” by Edmond Hamilton, “Ancient Fires” by Seabury Quinn, “He” by H. P. Lovecraft, “Jumbee” by Henry S. Whitehead and “Fettered” by Greye La Spina.
Squirreled away in there, with no illustration is “a four page filler” called “The Night Wire” by H. F. Arnold (1902-1963). The night wire was a job that existed after radio became popular but other forms of communication between large centers had not. The teletype was just on the horizon but before that people had to sit up at night and listen to news from abroad, type up the news for use in newspapers. “You sit up here on the top floor of a skyscraper and listen in on the whispers of that civilization. New York, London. Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore…”
The plot revolves around two men on night wire duty. John Morgan, a “double man”, an operator who can handle two wires and two different typewriters without getting confused. The other man is the manager and the narrator of the story. His job is to check the copy as it is typed in triplicate, separating the pages. Things get strange when news comes from a place called Xebico, reports of an unnaturally thick fog covering the city. The narrator is getting the story in sections as Morgan types.
The installments talk about how the fog has a sickening smell to it, having originated, according to the local sexton, from the graveyard. People go off in parties to find out if this is true. They never return. Search parties go after these people, and also don’t return.
The person sending the reports is on the thirteenth floor of a tall building. From there he can see and hear strange things. Screams and cries of pain fill the air. When the clouds of fog, with tendrils that don’t behave like ordinary fog, clear he can see people being attacked by foggy figures:
“The men and women are down. Flat on their faces. The fog figures caress them lovingly. They are kneeling beside them…the prone and writhing bodies have been stripped of their clothing. They are being consumed–piecemeal.”
Horrific enough, but the radio man seems safe enough in his tall building. except something is happened above too. weird lights and colors are taking shape in the sky:
“Now they have begun to swirl, to circle in and out, twisting in intricate designs and patterns. The lights are racing each with each, a kaleidoscope of unearthly brilliance.
“I have made a discovery. There is nothing harmful in the lights. They radiate force and friendliness, almost cheeriness. But by their very strength they hurt.”
The light drives away the fog. The observer can see people. But before he can tell us more the transmission ends.
The narrator now turns to Morgan, to discuss such an outrageous piece of news. The only problem is Morgan is dead, has been for hours. When the manager checks with Chicago, Wire Two has not been used all night. And when he looks on maps he can never find any place called Xebico.
Arnold has written a story of superb cosmic horror. The terrible events are never explained, giving a horrific vision of how the world could end. H. P. Lovecraft, quite understandably, was a fan. Similarities can also be seen in later horror productions such as John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980) and Stephen King’s “The Mist” (1980). Creepy fog is a staple of London mysteries from Victorian times but in this case placing terrors of a supernatural type in that fog is newer.
H. F. Arnold wasn’t a one-hit wonder. He also wrote “The City of Iron Cubes” (a two-parter in Weird Tales in 1929) and “When Atlantis Was” (another two-parter in Amazing Stories in 1937) but these longer stories by their nature do not approach the same level of cosmic weirdness. “The City of Iron Cubes” is a space invaders type tale in the Edmond Hamilton tradition. Iron cubes are transmitted across millions of miles to Earth. inside the cubes are soldiers bent on taking over the planet.
“When Atlantis Was” has a time warp that sends sailors back into time, where they meet up with a group of female martians. The resulting race that springs from their union are the Atlanteans of ancient prehistory. Nothing here is meant to be like “The Night Wire”.
It is unusual when a writer creates a one-off. Henry Kuttner’s “The Graveyard Rats” strikes me this way. He wrote several other horror tales but none of them has the same wallop. Others include: George Langelaan’s “The Fly”, T. S. Stribling’s “The Green Splotches” and “Spawn of the Infinitude” by Edward S. Pilsworth. The list goes on…
The bigger question is: why do some writers create a horror gem then turn to other things?
